Action 52

NES

Review by Joe Santulli

Active Enterprises

Compilation

Graphics: 2

Sound: 1

Gameplay: 1

Overall: 1

Here's
the good news: there really ARE 52 games in this single cartridge. Also, the
game has a nice intro with hip-hop sampled music, speech synthesis and a
very excited Cheetahman. Now the bad news: you'll be hard-pressed to find
any of these 52 games worth playing. They range from pretty bad to very very
bad. Common issues across games include poor graphics and sound, terrible
collision detection, and dull gameplay. Some games have specific problems,
such as enemies that suddenly appear on top of you.

The game that seems to be the marquee title is the last one, Cheetahmen.
This game has an actual introduction and cut-scenes and was eventually given
a dedicated sequel, Cheetahmen II. In this game your character travels from
right to left (sometimes up ladders) killing enemies, most of which are
completely indistinguishable. At one point I think I was being attacked by a
giant purple dildo. There are pits that you don't really fall into in as
much as touch and die. You have an attack button and a jump button but when
you jump and attack, you actually stop in mid-air - an undocumented
Cheetahman special power. If you attack on the far right of the screen you
can see half of your body on the far left. And this... THIS is the marquee
title.

Other
games that have interesting names return similar disappointments. I loved
the title "Evil Empire" and found the game features the tiniest characters
ever in a video game, kind of like a shrunken Lode Runner but just shooting,
no hole digging. Also there are many times when you're in a spot where you
can only go one way and there's a bad guy hanging in your way, ie "certain
death".'

"French Baker" sounded interesting, and why was I thinking it would be like
the old Atari game "Piece o' Cake". At first glance it looked more like
Burgertime, I'm alright with that. What I'm not alright with is that it
turns out to be yet another platform/shooter with more indistinguishable
enemies, most of which appear a single pixel away from you, ie "certain
death".

And so it goes, for fifty-something titles. As intriguing as the
thought of playing a "multi-cart" of NES games might be, you'd be much
better off grabbing one of those pirate games which actually have decent NES
and Famicom titles within.